Keys to the Just Right House

Marianne Cusato has the goods on getting the house that's right for you. See her at the Better Living Show March 23.

An example of a "Katrina Cottage," the alternative to FEMA trailers that architect Marianne Cusato designed in 2005. The 300 (or so) square foot homes are available as house plans and kits to buy and DIY.

You may not know Marianne Cusato’s name, but you’ve probably heard of and even seen pictures of her most famous work: the Katrina Cottages. In 2005, she was part of a team brought in by New Urbanism crusader Andres Duany (at the request of Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi) to design alternatives to the standard FEMA trailers people were supposed to live in after Katrina.

What she came up with was a “little yellow house” with a gable roof and a porch. It was simple, vernacular, southern-accented American architecture, and it caught on. Lowe’s now sells Katrina Cottage home kits. Sizing up at about 300 square feet, they’re also perfect entries into the small house movement that has been gaining popularity in recent years.

Interestingly, her classical, traditional principles could just as easily apply to Northwest Regional Modernism (which At Home has been fairly obsessed with recently): she purports to be a “champion of traditional architectural principles: structural common sense, aesthetics of form, appropriateness to a neighborhood, and sustainability.” If this is her core philosophy, she'll likely be preaching to the choir here in Portland. Which is a not necessarily a bad thing.

Please help us keep this community civil. We retain the right to remove or edit comments containing personal attacks or excessive profanity, and comments unrelated to the editorial content. Consult our Terms of Use for more details.